rainyengland

After Gabe’s post I thought I would list out all the things physically I can recall while drinking to stupidity ! It’s easily forgotten and brain just trys to remember the fuzzy warm feeling ..which lasted about a hour usually 👎🏻

Morning Taste, ugh ! After 2-3 bottles of wine the taste was horrific ! No matter of scrubbing mouth and tongue to point of heaving got rid of slime tongue !

sweats ..even In winter

toilet habits (sorry ! )

the throwing up anything eaten within a hour of waking up

the morning drink to cure the evening drink ..that was day gone usually

the aches and pains of sleeping on floor after falling out of bed !

the cough all day and spitting sludge out ..again sorry !

the red face , swollen and slimy ..nice look !

The headache ..Bang bang bang all blooming day until the next drink

feel free to add the joys we are missing in sobriety

Dee74

Honestly its the intangible things for me - the guilt, the shame, the fear, the self pity, the self loathing...that awful doom.

I miss none of those.

D

rainyengland

agreed ! The self loathing was awful 👎🏻

C0ntr0ls

I'll vote T-Habits hands down for me.

Wastinglife

For me, I wake up after a week long bender and a thousand dollars is gone from my bank account, I can't remember what I was doing, and there is a good likelihood that I have been arrested, or in the ER, or both. (Happened 2 months ago).

This scenario has actually played out in some fashion over 10 times. I've lost count...

brighterday1234

There are so many terrible effects of drinking alcohol for this alcoholic; both mental and physical.

The great news is they stopped when the alcohol stopped and recovery took its place 🙏

Mary88

The despair.
The feeling of being completely out of control.
Being unable to remember what I did or said the evening before.
The shame and guilt.
Bruising for no reason. Hard to explain to people how I was getting these terrible bruises.
Bleeding gums. Needing expensive and painful cleaning dental treatments . I believe this was caused by drinking. Gums have healed now and no longer bleed.
Abdominal /liver pain. I think this was caused by drinking because the pain is gone now.
Pins and needles in my feet and hands the day after a binge.

There is actually a lot more I could list.

owen90

Just a collection of my greatest hits:

• Scary heart palpitations (I have a benign arrhythmia that becomes VERY uncomfortable for a couple of days after heavy drinking)
• Bloating to the point of looking pregnant
• Agonising IBS attacks to the point of taking a pillow to the bathroom for hours since I cant leave.
• Waking up choking on stomach acid due to GERD (caused by alcohol damage) that is made 6000% worse when drinking
• Lying
• Extreme depression
• Reckless spending
• Letting my apartment get into a disgusting, dirty hell hole
• Having no memory of entire runs of days
• Worrying friends and family
• Missing work days and facing consequent disciplinaries
• Continuing to fragment my mind by pretending to be someone i'm not
• Cancelling on family occasions due to being so ill I cant move

thomas11

Most definitely an ugly reminder. Not sure if its my age or physical condition, but my withdrawals recently (covid lockdown) got to the point where I could not walk, my legs gave out. Why? if anyone knows, let me know.

Philemon

Thomas11 It could have been alcoholic nephropathy related. Where the alcohol damages your nerves in the extremities, like legs. A woman I knew years ago had this. So did Vanda, in the documentry Rain in My Heart. She was early 40s needed a walking frame because of it. Then in last scenes she was in a wheelchair. I think it was 2 years after that documentary that she died. I know Nige who died in that doc, his daughter wrote on her facebook Vanda had died a couple of years later. It does gets better in most people if they stop drinking, and the damage hasn't gone too far but will come back if they start again. But I'm no doctor just guessing

Outonthetiles

Gaining large amounts of weight.
Sweating when doing ordinary tasks.
Knocking over and breaking a lamp in my living room.
Badly spraining my ankle after tripping and falling while running down a flight of stairs.
Feeling like I was going to pass out or even die during a meeting.
Hearing distant "music" that I could never completely make out.
Vivid, terrifying dreams.
Beginning to lose my sense of balance.
Guilt from all the lying and from leading a double life.
Financial issues from bizarre purchases. I've posted this before, but I bought a $1500 restaurant quality espresso maker that I don't use, and I have a leatherbound set of books by Robert Lewis Stevenson that I have virtually no recollection of ordering.
Drunk texting and posting. I would dread going back in the morning and reading things I posted the previous night and the fights I would get into with people. I'm a member of a recording industry forum and to this day I see some of my old posts and I can tell the ones I made before I got sober without looking at the date I posted it.
Extreme, lasting guilt from a series of relationships that I destroyed. I must have been fairly charming when drinking, because I went through a bunch of relationships and hurt many people along the way. I deeply regret this now.

pinkbutterfly20

-The shaking to the point of barely being able to type or hold a cup of coffee.

-the shame and lying and deceit

-the crippling anxiety and obsession with the next drink

-the bloat and looking like a whale that has been sunburned.

RecklessDrunk

The anxiety, definitely the anxiety. Physically I use to sort of feel like my blood was filled with tiny bubbles or something.
If I sent any texts that's an easy solution I will just swipe delete everything without re reading because I don't want to know.

The mess I made and the mystery of how it got that way.

One morning I awoke to pieces of burned paper in the sink. Oh thats right, I ran all of my lighters out of fluid smoking crack. I had a little bit of crack left but was too drunk/high/paranoid to go out and get another lighter. At this point I could hear every drop of water run through the pipes in the walls and I'm scared of the pipes. I'm scared of everything. So I lit paper towels off the stove and put them out under the faucet.

Many of these mysteries have gone unsolved. Some things I just could never piece together. Sometimes I just can't fathom how my drunk twin could have made some of these messes!

Hodd

I did a thread a few months ago about throwing up in the night after eating one too many naans with an evening meal. Luckily I rarely threw up as a drinker, but the disturbed sleep that night along with my body recovering the next day meant I felt terrible. I had no energy, my stomach felt wrong and the annoying headache.

But I laughed at the experience as I knew it was a one off. I felt like that 3 or 4 times a week as a drinker.

Hangovers are horrific and get worse with age, but for drinkers they’re the norm. Now mornings are for gym or study whilst my mind is alert. They used to be for recovery. Horrible way to live.

owen90

That's so true about hangovers being the "norm". I got so used to them due to how often I had them I could hardly tell when I was having one (unless it was a really bad one after a several day binge). Just felt rotten all the time, regardless.

Hodd

Yep, so not only did us (hopefully) ex-drinkers waste our evenings with drink, we wiped out the most productive part of the next day too.

My wife and I used to live abroad, and last year I went back there for a weekend to meet a friend. I sent pictures to my wife of this huge thriving market on the Saturday morning right outside where we used to live. She replied to say she went every Saturday! I’d been moping around the house with a hangover!

Lilac0505

Yes. All of this. Feeling all of these emotions and things right now.

least

I'm so glad to be done with waking up hating myself and wishing I were dead. Now I wake up feeling good and ready for the day. What a difference!

Jim1958

My hangovers used to last about 3 days.
I would throw up, or have the dry heaves.
I could not sleep, and would lie in bed and listen to podcasts to pass the time.
I would shave drunk the night before, because the next morning my hand would shake and make shaving difficult.

Dee74

Welcome aboard Lilac - it gets better I promise

D